There has conventionally been a commercial printing industry in which printing is done by contract. In the commercial printing industry, a third party (customer or client) places an order to create a printed product (e.g., magazine, newspaper, brochure, advertisement, or gravure), and a desired printed product is created. The created printed product is delivered to the ordering client to get the fee of the printed product from the client. Even now, the commercial printing industry does business mainly using large-scale printing apparatuses such as an offset reproduction printing press.
In the commercial printing industry, work proceeds through various processes such as entry, design & layout, comprehensive layout (presentation using a printer output), proofreading (layout correction and color correction), proof (proof print), block copy preparation, printing, post process, and shipping. The reason of going through these processes is that a block copy must be prepared in this printing environment and once the block copy is prepared, it is difficult and disadvantageous in cost to correct the block copy. Thus, careful proofreading (layout check and color confirmation) is indispensable.
As described above, in this industry, large-scale apparatuses are needed, and a long time is taken to create a printed product desired by a client. Work operations require expert knowledge and know-how of experts.
Nowadays, with the advent of high-speed and high-image quality electrophotographic and inkjet printing apparatuses, a business category of print-on-demand (POD) is present against the conventional printing industry. The POD intends to print many copies and many jobs in a short delivery period without using the above-mentioned large-scale printing apparatus or system. The POD allows the advent of a new market where digital printing using electronic data is implemented to do business by making the best of digital image forming apparatuses such as a digital copying machine and digital multi-function peripheral.
In this POD market, printing is merged with digitization more than in the conventional commercial printing industry, and management and control using computers become widespread. By utilizing this feature, POD printing is coming close to a given printing industry level. In this background, the POD market provides PFP (Print For Pay) which is a printing service for a copy/print shop, and CRD (Centralized Reproduction Department) which is an in-house printing service.
In today's POD market, several standards have been developed by industrial groups to aim at implementation of comprehensive business supports and efficient business operation. An example of these standards is a format CIP3 (International Cooperation For Integration of Prepress, Press and Postpress). Another example is JDF (Job Definition Format) in CIP4 (International Cooperation For Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress).
A PPF is a format for integrating all printing workflows, i.e., prepress, press, and postpress, and exchanging data on processes and management between processes. The PPF is based on PostScript®. The PPF is exploited as a standard format which aims to stabilize the quality, reduce errors, increase the process speed, and efficiently operate the production equipment by treating various kinds of information such as management information, ink adjustment, and designation of the cutting position.
A JDF is a format containing additional information such as the controllability of the PPF, prepress work information called PJTF (Portable Job Ticket Format) proposed by Adobe, and control attributes. A feature of the JDF is integration of pieces of information in prepress, press, and postpress, cooperation with the production and process control manager, and compatibility with existing systems.
The JDF follows an architecture of exchanging an electronic work order form called Job Ticket, which is suitable for the PJTF. This architecture can sequentially execute necessary processes in respective processes on the basis of the log, work order, management information, and the like, and transfer information on each process to the next process.
The JDF adopts XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as a language which constructs Job Ticket (work order form information to programs and devices). The JDF defines a template called a schemer which describes XML elements and an attribute array. In accordance with the defined schemer, XML data is rewritten in each process.
By using this format, it is becoming easy to comprehensively manage processes from entry from a client to delivery, and manage various kinds of information on a printout.
In order to increase the business efficiency of the operator in the POD market, there has conventionally been proposed a technique of supporting and designating the contents of post process work performed by the operator.
For example, patent reference 1 discloses a technique which allows the operator, who operates a collator used in a post process to collate different output products into one printed product, to efficiently do work. More specifically, this reference discloses a configuration in which paper sheets each bearing a barcode representing page information and job information for forming one printed product are printed together with different output products.
By using this technique, the operator suffices to set different printed products at respective bins of the collator together with barcode-printed paper sheets, and designate the start of processing. At the same time as the start of processing, the designated collator loads the barcode, recognizes the collation order of sheets and a finishing process after collation, and generates one printed product.
Patent reference 2 discloses a mechanism which designates collation by printing, on a cover sheet, coded information recognizable by a finish device (collator) when a plurality of different output products are collated into one printed product, similar to patent reference 1. In paragraph [0016] of patent reference 2, it is disclosed to print information readable by the user (operator) on a cover sheet.
Patent reference 3 discloses a configuration to create an order form recognizable by the operator and finisher.
In the following description, a post step of executing a post process uses devices called finishers such as a folding machine and cutting machine. These devices can be classified into three types.
The first type is a finisher which is directly connected to a printing apparatus and automatically receives paper. This finisher is called an “inline finisher”.
The second type is a finisher which is connected to a network, but is not directly physically coupled to a printing apparatus, does not automatically receive paper, and requires the intervention of manual work of the operator. This finisher is called a “near-line finisher”.
The third type is a finisher which is neither connected to any network nor has any transmission means for information (e.g., a job ticket). This finisher is called an “offline finisher”.
Of these three types of finishers, the present invention is directed to the near-line finisher and offline finisher which require the intervention of manual work of the operator. The offline finisher whose problem is clearer will be explained.
When the offline finisher is used, the operator must sequentially bring printed products (paper sheets) output from the printing apparatus to respective devices, and perform manual work in accordance with procedures.    [Patent Reference 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-112704    [Patent Reference 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-509065    [Patent Reference 3] U.S. Pat. No. 6,224,048
The above-described JDF standard has facilitated data management in the printing process in the POD market. In practice, however, main work is manually done by the operator even now in the POD operation environment.
As disclosed in patent references 1 and 2, a post process such as bookbinding is performed for a paper document output from the printing apparatus by using devices called finishers such as a folding machine and cutting machine. In order to obtain a bound product as a final product by using these devices, the operator must sequentially bring printed products (paper sheets) output from the printing apparatus to the respective devices, and perform manual work in accordance with procedures.
To improve this situation, it is conceived to apply standards such as the JDF not only to process management but also to a printing operation performed by the operator and finisher management in respective printing processes in the future. For this purpose, there is a need for a configuration for interpreting a job ticket (e.g., the JDF) described in XML and executing control corresponding to the interpreted contents in the printing operation and various finishers.
At present, however, job ticket-compatible post processing apparatuses have not satisfactorily been lined up. In addition, various finishers used in the POD operation are very expensive. Considering this, it is actually difficult to replace current apparatuses with job ticket-compatible post processing apparatuses. Although management of the printing process and management of data benefit from job tickets such as the JDF, an operation to perform a post process for a printout depends on conventional manual work by the operator. It is hard to say that the productivity of all POD operations increases.
For this reason, techniques of instructing the operator on work, as disclosed in patent references 1 and 2, are still needed. However, the techniques described in patent references 1 and 2 do not consider any method of interpreting data described in a job ticket and creating an order form in accordance with the interpretation result so that the operator can read work contents to be executed by him.
More specifically, in patent reference 1, whether a page has color or monochrome data is automatically determined or specified by an input from the operator for each page of data to be printed. When jobs are output using a color MFP (Multi-Function Peripheral) and monochrome MFP, a PDL unit creates a barcode sheet for instructing the collator on work contents so as to output the barcode sheet together with each job.
In a conventional printing system in which a printing apparatus and post processing apparatus are directly connected, the contents of a post process set by a driver are transmitted as a post process command to the post processing apparatus via the printing apparatus. The post processing apparatus generally interprets the command to execute the set post process.
Conventionally, the post processing apparatus directly connected to the printing apparatus is instructed on a process by a command. The technique in patent reference 1 only replaces a command with an interpretable barcode when the post processing apparatus is not directly connected to the printing apparatus.
That is, the technique described in patent reference 1 is established under a preliminary agreement which enables generating/interpreting a command, barcode, and the like. This technique cannot be applied to another environment. As described above, a POD operation is manually executed by the operator using apparatuses suited to various post processes. Also as described above, these apparatuses cannot interpret commands common to a printing data generation device and post processing device in patent reference 1.
The system in patent reference 1 does not consider a main case in current POD operations in which the operator uses a plurality of types of post processing apparatuses (e.g., a folding machine, cutting machine, and gluing machine), and sequentially executes manual work operations using the post processing apparatuses for paper sheets output from the printing apparatus, thereby obtaining a final product (bound product). The system in patent reference 1 does not provide any fundamental solution to problems in the current POD operation environment.
The techniques in patent references 2 and 3 more conform to the current POD operation environment because a command readable by a finisher and a text readable by the user (operator) are output onto a cover sheet.
Patent references 2 and 3 disclose that the cover sheet describes, as user-readable information, instructions for folding, stitching, and the like in steps after stacking together with information on a paper stock, a stacking order, and a printer used for a plurality of outputs which form a composite document. However, no concrete method of generating the cover sheet itself is disclosed.
In any case, patent references 1 to 3 do not consider effective utilization of a job ticket for management of the printing process and instruction information at the work level of a post printing process.